Viscount Younger of Leckie: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, for securing this timely and wide-ranging debate. It is not dissimilar to a recent debate, on which I wound up, led by the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth. As the House may know, that focused on the future of work in the context of new technologies. I declare an interest as my background is in human resources in industry and the City, so I understand very well the importance to people of opportunities for learning and retraining throughout their working lives. The quality of the debate and contributions today reflects the deep importance that this House sees in lifelong learning and I am grateful to all Peers for their contributions.
I will start by providing a backdrop to give some context for our policies. The UK is the fifth biggest economy in the world. In 2016, the World Economic Forum placed the UK third in the world for technological readiness. There are record numbers in employment. The employment rate is 75.3%, the highest since comparable records began in 1971. However, we know that one of our greatest challenges is productivity. I was in the Chamber earlier today for an interesting debate on the link between employment levels and productivity when my noble friend Lord Henley read the Statement on the industrial strategy. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, raised the important question of productivity. The Government are implementing policies that will help to tackle our low productivity levels and optimise the opportunity automation provides. As announced in the industrial strategy White Paper, this includes our commitment to spending 2.4% of GDP on research and development, which could increase public and private investment by as much as £80 billion over the next 10 years. We are effecting changes to our labour market to enable new ways of working. We are improving our skills systems, including the development of a new national retraining scheme to encourage lifelong learning.
What do we mean by lifelong learning? First, it means providing opportunities for progression by upskilling and reskilling to adapt to a changing labour market. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, who gave a realistic view from—if I may put it this way—the front line of the Warwick Manufacturing Group. He said that the scale of reskilling is enormous. I am always interested to hear about the progress of that group and I do not forget my most interesting visit to it several years ago. Secondly, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester said, lifelong learning ensures that those who have underachieved academically, for whatever reason, have the chance to update their skills and increase their earnings. He also highlighted the link with self-esteem and well-being. The noble Lord, Lord Bichard, spoke about the increased enrichment of people’s lives through  upskilling; he is absolutely right. Thirdly, lifelong learning enables those who have been out of work to update their skills and re-enter employment. The noble Lord, Lord Young, made an interesting and important point about prisoners and the importance of their having opportunities to maximise their skills. Hopefully, this keeps them out of prison, but if they are in there it enables them to take on a meaningful role when they get out.
However, our approach must be flexible, relevant and appropriate to benefit all in society. There are two examples. One, which has not been mentioned today, is women returning to work. The female employment rate is now 70.8%, up 18 percentage points since 1971. Another is the increasing number of older workers who will be contributing to the economy. The number of people aged 50 and over is expected to reach 30 million by 2035. Thus we have set out an ambitious programme that includes a new national retraining scheme, informed by a series of career-learning pilots; a refreshed role for apprenticeships for adults in work; a review of higher-level technical qualifications; and £5 million to support people returning to work following a break caring for children or relatives.
In last week’s Budget, my right honourable friend the Chancellor made an announcement in the other place on the national retraining scheme. This will be an ambitious, far-reaching programme to address adult learning and retraining. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, alluded to, it will be driven by a new national retraining partnership—the coming together of Government, the CBI and the TUC to set a broad strategic direction for the scheme, and to oversee its implementation. I was pleased to have this endorsed by the noble Lord, Lord Young. The scheme includes a set of sector-focused and employer-driven initiatives. Starting next year, it will target immediate skills shortages in key sectors and will be fully implemented by the end of the Parliament. There will be £64 million for schemes in the digital and construction sectors. We will give individuals the best chance to gain the skills they need to progress in work, redirect their careers and secure the higher-paid, high-skilled jobs of the future.
The noble Lord, Lord Bichard, asked whether we had in mind a national career- learning action plan. The Budget set out a clear direction for our ambitious career-learning agenda through the announcement of the national retraining scheme, as I mentioned earlier. Our initial focus on construction and digital also demonstrates commitment to supporting adults to acquire the skills which are valuable to our economy now and in the future. The historic national retraining partnership will be essential in building a lifelong learning programme that really works for businesses and employees and it will be key in guiding our approach.
Underpinning the scheme, we made a commitment in the spring Budget of up to £40 million for pilots to robustly test both supply and demand-side interventions. The pilots are exploring the most efficient and effective ways to reduce the barriers for all adult learners. The first of the career-learning pilots—the Flexible Learning Fund—was launched on 31 October. Through this fund, the Government are making available up to  £10 million to support projects which design and test flexible and accessible ways of delivering learning to working adults with low or intermediate skills. I look forward to returning to the House with further details of more of our pilot schemes in due course.
Alongside the national retraining scheme, we aim to ensure that technical qualifications—the new T-levels—are accessible to adults. I am pleased that there was, generally, a warm welcome for this in the House today. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester mentioned it in his speech. We have worked through the Sainsbury review recommendations on technical education. I thank in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, for her significant and insightful contributions to the review panel. Her work on parity of esteem has been of considerable value in forming our policy in this area. Accordingly, we will develop the T-level programme offer for adults, so that they have access to the same high-quality content as 16 to 19 year-olds, while recognising that many adult learners face different barriers to learning and addressing that as part of the programme development. We will shortly launch a public consultation about the implementation of T-levels, which will include issues around how best to adapt them for adult learners.
Age and experience should not be barriers to higher academic achievement either. The CBI reports that more than 75% of businesses expect to have more job openings for people with higher-level skills over the coming years. We are committed to extending the reform of technical education up to higher levels and are undertaking a review at levels 4 and 5—above A-level but below a degree.
The review was launched on 31 October. It will focus on how technical qualifications can better address the needs of learners and employers. The Government will consult widely with employers, education providers, learners and others with expertise in this area. The review forms part of the Government’s commitment to supporting routes to higher-earning technical roles and addressing the skills needs of the economy, as outlined in the Post-16 Skills Plan.
I would now like to touch on apprenticeships. There remains among some people the view that an apprentice is a teenager with a desire to learn a career for life, but I am sure noble Lords would agree that that view is out of date. Apprenticeships can be a means for everyone seeking work-based and career-enhancing learning. The noble Lord, Lord Young, asked about flexibility in the apprenticeship levy. We want to see the levy and reformed funding system bed in before considering any substantial changes, and are clear that stability in the market is key. We will continue to monitor the impact of the levy and remain open to feedback from employers and providers on how the system is working for them, but I note very strongly the points the noble Lord made.
We are committed to making sure that apprenticeships are as accessible as possible to people of all ages and backgrounds. It is now well known that we are working on achieving the 3 million apprenticeship starts in England by 2020. We have achieved over 1.1 million new starts since 2015. This includes over 500,000 starts  by adults over the age of 25. The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, spoke passionately about the need to ensure that adults have the best possible opportunities to undertake apprenticeships. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, spoke about the importance of ensuring that all apprenticeships are high quality and he raised a concern about the recent numbers of apprenticeship starts. I completely agree with him about the importance of high-quality apprenticeships. We are clear that apprenticeships must be real jobs with 12 months’ training and with 20% of training being off the job, as he will know. All providers delivering training must be on the ESFA register. This ensures that high-quality apprenticeship training is provided for all apprentices. The apprenticeship levy  is new, as I said earlier, and employers are using the 24 months available to them to take a considered and strategic approach to hiring apprentices. However, as  I said earlier, we remain committed to delivering the 3 million starts by 2020, and up to the necessary quality.
As was mentioned earlier, we have been working hard on encouraging and engendering a so-called parity of esteem between further education and higher education. The Government have maintained funding for the adult education budget in cash terms at £1.5 billion for this year. The AEB funds colleges and providers to help adult learners overcome barriers which prevent them taking part in learning. This includes support for adults with a specific financial hardship and meeting the additional needs of learners with learning difficulties and disabilities. I was very interested in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, who spoke passionately about autism and cited an example from Surrey. There are a growing number of technical and digital companies that are better set up to take on those with autism. We want to continue to encourage more companies that can better employ them with the particular skills they have. We are committed to making a difference to the lives of all disabled people. People should be able to get the support they need, whatever their health condition or disability, and that includes those with more than one condition, with fluctuating conditions and with less common or more complex conditions. As mental health conditions and musculoskeletal disorders are the most common conditions that affect participation in progress, making sure of services for people with these conditions is a key part of our programme. We will shortly publish plans to achieve our ambition of 1 million more disabled people in employment in the UK by 2027. The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, also asked questions about pilots and updates on access by disabled students. If he will forgive me, I will write to him with an update. I think there were some questions on dates and timings.
Lastly, we need to ensure that no parts of the country are left behind. That is why the first six opportunity areas are receiving a share of £72 million to implement bespoke plans, covering everything from improving early education for two year-olds, launching new maths centres to help key stage 1 pupils excel, and supporting young people during the transition into adulthood through enhanced careers support. Talking of careers, too many adult learners have lost their way because they have been offered little or irrelevant guidance. I was interested in the views of the noble  Lord, Lord Kirkwood, on this subject. Much of his speech was focused on the important subject of social mobility. He spoke not necessarily just about adults but made some passionate points about those who are often seen to be left behind. I took note of everything that he said.
The Secretary of State has confirmed that we will publish a careers strategy later this year, with a clear focus on social mobility. We are reviewing the current careers offer for people of all ages, and the proposals in the strategy will build on the best international evidence to improve the quality and coverage of careers guidance. We are investing over £70 million this year to support young people and adults to get high-quality careers provision.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, raised a point about the decline in part-time students at university. The Office for Fair Access has asked universities to consider the different barriers mature learners may face in accessing, succeeding in and progressing from higher education, and to consider what more can be done to attract and support part-time learners across the whole student life cycle as part of their access agreements. In response to a question from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, we acknowledge that there has been a drop in the number of part-time students, including part-time disadvantaged students, but I reassure him that the number of disadvantaged students has increased overall.
I thank noble Lords once again for their expertise and contributions to this short debate. The Government have put in place a comprehensive programme of work to ensure that learners have access to inclusive—